March 29, 2026 — On the eve of a scheduled lunar flight, the Artemis II crew said they are ready as teams at Kennedy Space Center prepare the rocket for a possible Wednesday liftoff. Commander Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen traveled from Houston to KSC on Friday and entered medical quarantine ahead of launch preparations. They spoke with reporters during a virtual news conference Sunday.
The crew described a growing sense of reality and readiness as families joined them and pre-test briefings took place. Koch said the activity at the Cape made the mission feel immediate, and Wiseman emphasized that this is a test flight: humans will be aboard for the first time on this vehicle. He added the team will only proceed when both the vehicle and ground crews indicate they are ready, and they are prepared for the possibility of going to the pad and having to try again.
The launch was originally hoped for earlier in February but was delayed by work to repair hydrogen fuel leaks and, more recently, by troubleshooting issues pressurizing the rocket’s upper-stage propulsion system. The new target for liftoff is April 1, weather permitting.
A 49-hour, 40-minute countdown is scheduled to begin at 4:44 p.m. ET Monday. If everything goes as planned the clock will reach zero at 6:24 p.m. ET Wednesday, at which point the crew would launch aboard an Orion crew capsule atop the 322-foot Space Launch System rocket. Both Orion and the SLS will be making their first crewed flights.
Forecasts currently give an 80 percent chance of acceptable weather for launch, with a roughly 20 percent chance that high winds or thick clouds could force a scrub. Ground systems manager Shawn Quinn described the pre-test briefing as among the cleanest they have had, with no significant open work.
Artemis II is the first piloted mission to travel back toward the moon in 53 years. It is designed to test Orion’s propulsion, navigation, communications and life-support systems during a lunar flyby. The crew will not land or enter lunar orbit; instead they will loop around the moon’s far side and return to Earth for a Pacific Ocean splashdown near San Diego, expected a few minutes after 8 p.m. ET on April 10.
If the mission launches at the opening of Wednesday’s two-hour window, the spacecraft will reach roughly 252,799 miles from Earth, about 4,144 miles farther than the Apollo 13 record set in 1970.
Artemis II is intended as a pathfinder for future operations, including an Earth-orbit rendezvous and docking test next year and planned crewed lunar landings as early as 2028 using commercially developed lunar landers.